Thursday, April 7, 2011

2. As a practical joke, restaurant reviewer Jonathan Gold told his photographer to meet him at Olive Garden because they were going to review the restaurant:

The chain has introduced an aesthetic of Tuscan goodness, I assured Anne. Olive Garden chefs now undergo rigorous training at the Culinary Institute of Tuscany, in the heart ofChianti Classico, where "they learn the key values and skills needed to remain true to the rich history of Italian cuisine.'' They bring in their own chianti now, grown around an 11th-century castle called Riserva di Fizzano — the "village'' name is the rough equivalent of calling an olive-oil town Extra-Vergine di Olio. They use pecorino Romano. From Italy. It's cheese. And they were planning to remodel a certain percentage of their restaurants to resemble Tuscan country inns — Tuscan country inns of a sort that didn't really exist until a 1980s ad campaign for digestive biscuits convinced the Italian populace that they did, but no matter.

I had no intention of eating lunch at the Olive Garden. I was planning to intercept the grumpy photographer at the door and spirit her to the Derby, a track-fueled steak house less than a minute's drive down the street. We'd have a Sidecar or two. We'd laugh at how she'd been fooled. There would be leftover meat for her bull terrier.

Except that I was caught in traffic and ended up at the restaurant 20 minutes after she got there. She had commandeered a big table upstairs, and was already into the bread sticks, long, doughy things slicked with grease and oil.

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